31 October 2016

From Bergen we
took the train and wanted to head to a little fjord village called
Flåm following Bergensbanen, the Bergen-Oslo railway line, one of
the most beautiful railway journeys in the world. Taking
Bergensbanen was actually the main purpose of our trip. I will be
writing a bit more about it later, as we had some unexpected
adventures along the route to Oslo.

Flåm was an
absolutely beautiful village located at the end of a fjord,
surrounded by mountains. We had generous two balconies in our hotel
room and had the most magnificent views from there. The autumn colours were just beautiful around there, and the weather continued being good. We went for walks in the surrounding hills and tried to chase for a waterfall, which turned out to be too high on the mountainside, so we had to give our climb up. The village also
has their own microbrewery, Ægir Bryggeri and Pub. I think I'm going
to write a separate post about them not to make this post too long.

So in order to
reach Flåm by rail, you need to take the picturesque mountain
railway known as the Flåmsbana. You can connect to it from the
Bergensbanen in a roadless mountain village of Myrdal. This heritage
rail takes you through the most amazing mountain scenery, and it's a
bit dizzying at times. This railway route has also been described as
one of the most beautiful in the world. It is quite an impressive
demonstration of engineering, building a railway under such difficult
conditions.

Another month is
about to end and it's time for the Eat Your Greens Round Up
for October. The challenge launched on the World Vegetarian Day and
what a good month for vegetarian cooking it has been. There were once
again many fabulous contributions with green vegetables, just look at
those lovely bowls full of goodness! Now, let's have a closer look at
the tasty recipes.

Janet from
The Taste Space shared
a Chickpea Chile Verde.
The recipe is vegan and the dish looks just perfect and warming for
this season. It contains Janet's homegrown tomatillos, hearty
chickpeas and corn, and it's spiced with jalapeno, ground cumin and
ground coriander.

My
Eat Your Greens co-host Shaheen from
Allotment 2 Kitchen posted a
recipe for Tamarind Edamame, Soy and Green Beans.
This is another vegan dish full of green components. It's spicy with
chilli, ginger and tamarind and there are plenty of greens: green
beans, garden peas, edamame and soy beans. This is another bowl that
I would happily scoff instantly.

Johanna from
Green Gourmet Giraffe cooked
a Dal with haloumi and mint.
I like this idea of combining dal with halloumi, partly because I
would like to combine everything with halloumi. It may not be a
traditional way of serving dal, but I can see it working very well.
Johanna's Dal is vibrantly green, as it contains peas and fresh mint,
and it's spiced with chilli and turmeric.

My own recipe
for Eat Your Greens this month was a Spinach and lentil curry with coconut rice. It's a vegan dish full of spinach and green lentils
decorated with fragrant fresh coriander. I really like this kind of
comfort food, especially in this season.

These were the
recipes for October, thank you everyone very much for taking part!
Shaheen will now take over with hosting for November. Please
head to her blog for more information and do take part also in
November.

30 October 2016

I wasn't sure if I
would manage any Halloween related posts, as I've been on holiday and
then had a busy weekend back. It always takes a while to get back to
the normal cooking routine, although I'm really happy to be cooking
at home again. I don't really celebrate Halloween, but find it quite
intriguing, so I wanted to make a small starter dish to celebrate the
season. Maybe the faces on my chilli-honey glazed butternut squash
“pumpkins” weren't quite as scary as I intended, but they did
taste good.

I also wanted to
taste a few pumpkin beers, so here are my impressions of them. I
already wrote a post about Beavertown Brewery's Stingy Jack Spiced Pumpkin Ale last year, so I'm not going to write about that one,
even though I bought it again now.

The other two
beers that I wanted to taste were Roadsmary's
Baby and Pumpkin IPA.

Roadsmary's Baby
6.8% by Two Roads is an ale brewed with pumpkin and spices and aged
in rum barrels with vanilla beans. It has a deep orange colour and
smells fruity and of vanilla. The foretaste is slightly sour with
some fruity esters and spiciness and there's a long aftertaste of
vanilla and hint of Christmassy spices. This beer is quite drinkable
considering the strength.

The Pumpkin IPA by
Flying Dog 6.7% is an ale brewed with pumpkin purée and spices. It
has a very spicy scent with maple and there are strong maple notes
throughout. The aftertaste has a long hoppy bitterness with strong
spices and there's a lot of pumpkin in the aftertaste. Again, there
is no real taste of alcohol, so this beer seems more drinkable than
expected.

29 October 2016

I thought another
squash dish would be suitable for this season. I was going to make
some Halloween themed post, but I'm not sure, if I'll manage with a
busy weekend ahead. I've already seen several Halloween recipes by my
blogger colleagues, and they all look cute and creepy at the same
time. This dish that I cooked now doesn't look special, but it could be a good dish for this weekend nevertheless.

Spaghetti squash
is a funny one to cook. I think it's pretty much at its best when
roasted and then pulled into the spaghetti like strings. In this dish
I combined roasted spaghetti squash with a black bean and sweetcorn
chilli. The dish would be vegan, if you substitute the cheese on the
nachos or skip it fully. The dish is also very tasty as fully vegan.

Ingredients

1 spaghetti squash

Olive oil

1 onion

3 garlic cloves

2 small chillies

240 g / 1 can
black beans

140 g / 1 small
can sweetcorn

200 g tomatoes

Ground cumin to
taste

Ground coriander
to taste

Smoked paprika to
taste

2 tsp smoked
chilli paste

1 tbsp tomato
purée

Splash of liquid
aminos

1 tsp cocoa powder

Serve with:

400 g nachos

150 g grated
Cheddar and Mozzarella

Method

Cut the spaghetti
squash in half, brush with olive oil and roast in the oven until
soft.

Prepare the rest
of the chilli in the meanwhile by simmering all chilli ingredients
together. Season the chilli to taste.

Once the squash is
roasted, pull the flesh out with a fork and mix it into the chilli. I
left some over to put as decoration on the top, otherwise the squash
becomes quite invisible.

Heat up some
nachos in the oven covered with cheese and serve them with the
chilli.

28 October 2016

We took a three
hour fjord cruise from Bergen to Mostraumen to see a bit more of the
surrounding nature and landscapes. The views were really spectacular,
snowy mountain tops, waterfalls, small fjord villages with their
churches and high hills. I secretly hoped at times that I would have
a small wooden house in some of those secluded spots. Maybe one day I
will...

The boat moved
mostly at quite high speed and we certainly did get some fresh air
during the cruise, as the wind on the deck could get quite strong.
Luckily there was also an indoor space to warm up in. The day started
off cloudy, but I think that I still managed to capture some of the
atmosphere in the photos. More sun would have been nice, but what can
you do.

I hope you enjoy
the photos and get a bit of an idea what it looks like in the fjords,
if you have never been there. I also promise to post some recipes
soon, now I'm just too much in the holiday mood still.

27 October 2016

We returned from
our holiday late yesterday, so I'm slowly trying to get thousands of
photos sorted. The holiday in Norway was of course absolutely
amazing, it topped all my expectations. The landscapes were
unbelievable and the weather was great, not a drop of water fell on
us and it wasn't too cold at all.

First of all we
spent a few days in the historical coastal town of Bergen. There was
a lot to do there and the place is very beautiful itself. Already the
views from the plane took my breath away when landing in Bergen.

On
the first day we took the funicular Fløibanen up
to the top of Mount Fløyen to see the view over the city and the
surrounding fjords and mountains and have a lunch picnic there. The
surrounding woods are very good for walks and there are cashmere
goats roaming in the area.

The historical
Bryggen area in the town centre, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage
site, is very pretty and interesting. It consists of colourful wooden
hanseatic buildings from the Medieval times. Of course Bergen was an
important hansa trading town and this heritage has been well
preserved.

The food and drink
scene in Bergen is very vibrant and quite a few vegetarian options
are available. We quite liked the Royal Gourmetburger and Gin, and
ate there twice. They had just a divine falafel burger with hummus,
tabouleh, harissa and fried halloumi served with chucky chips.

The harbour area
in general is very pretty, as are the surrounding hills. We enjoyed a
few good sunsets here. There is a lovely food market building in the
harbour, but unfortunately it is mainly a fish market, so we didn't
eat anything there. It looks nice though and has several restaurants,
some of them must also serve vegetarian food.

We also visited a
couple of microbreweries and craft beer bars, like Mikrobryggeri,
Henrik øl & vinstove and Una serving many different local and
Norwegian craft beers, which we enjoyed very much.

More Norway themed
posts will follow soon. Here are still a few random photos with street art, autumn colours and an interesting find that someone had the same idea as I did with the cabbage like plant decoration. I just haven't put mine into action yet, but will probably do now.

Who is The VegHog?

A vegetarian hobby cook and urban gardener born in Finland, currently living in Denmark. I try to develop my cooking skills by making a wide variety of veggie dishes, some of them traditional and some new creations. My favourites include veggie burgers, squashes, organic and local produce, cider, spelt, rye, pizzas, pasta dishes, risottos and sea-buckthorn.
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